


Mutatis Mutandis

by kilodalton



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1241032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kilodalton/pseuds/kilodalton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most people plan for their future. She plans for her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutatis Mutandis

**Author's Note:**

> Mutatis mutandis is a Latin phrase which translates to "by changing those things which need to be changed". This is a fic in which River is cool and Eleven is the canonical self-centered jerk we've seen him as, and is my attempt to plug the plot holes in the Moffat era vis a vis their relationship and River's scattershot characterization.

  
He won't look at her. He stands alone, shoulders tense, fiddling with the temporal extraction belt. She stares up at him, confused and beseeching, wondering what, just what, she has done wrong. Or will do wrong. She slowly starts to reach her hand out to him, even as he pulls away, turning away from her touch just before her fingers would have reached his shoulder.

All her life she’s been a beat too late for him, it seems.

He knows what path her life will take, and acts as if it has already happened. Without intent, she knows both their lives are hurtling towards something predestined: something that upsets him. She wishes she knew what it was. Wishes she could stop it, if only it would soften the taut expression on his face every time he looks at her. Til then, they fall together, and fall back apart, and each time they meet he seems so much colder.

As long as she’s known him, he’s been fantastic. Brilliant. Amazing.

But her … he doesn’t trust her. Sometimes she doubts he even much likes her.

It’s palpable.

It cuts.

“Bad girl,” indeed.

"Can I help?" she asks softly.

"No," he says, rapid and polite and soft and final.

He doesn’t even turn around.

She stands her ground, silently willing him to change his mind. But she knows this is a futile wish: not once in their shared history can she ever remember him relenting.

She would do anything for him. Will do anything for him. That much, she knows with absolute certainty.

\--

Time can be rewritten, so he always says, although he acts like it's been written already.

She's young still, and despite being the child of the time vortex, she doesn’t know what he could possibly mean by this: only that he says it with finality.

“We keep meeting in the wrong order,” he says once, softly, glancing over at her judiciously.

She nods, quickly, with a veneer of sageness, as if this is old news.

He turns away slowly.

\--

Once, she’s saved him, and he _knows_ it this time. A bright smile breaks through. She snuggles into its unfamiliar comfort, warmed.

He is still fantastic, extraordinary, brilliant.

For just a moment — a brief, almost illusory moment — he laughs and says she is, too.

“You always say that,” she says with a wink. Not knowing where the statement came from, simply wishing it to be true.

His smile vanishes, then so does hers, and time seems to freeze around them. She is panicked for a long, silent moment that he is going to contradict her.

He is quiet though, glancing over at her wordlessly, and considering her with a slight amount of trepidation, before turning away with a frown.

It is only when he is faced away from her that he murmurs it almost nervously, so softly she’s almost not sure she heard him correctly.

“You shouldn’t tell me my future.”

\--

She considers this …

\--

Once, he catches her hand, perhaps on accident.

She’s helped him. She will always help him. They are racing for their lives, and for once she feels they are linked _together_ , and she feels so — _free_.

Her heart speeds up as he gives her a wide smile, and she feels as if she could run across the stars from the joy she feels.

She gives him a confident grin and winks saucily, clasping his long fingers within her palm as if they belong there. As if they always belonged there. His brows shoot up, making him look almost surprised, as he stares at her like she is the most fascinating mystery in all the universe.

She tosses her head back in sheer exhilaration and laughs, wind dancing through her curls, as his fingers slowly entwine with her own.

_She savors this._

\--

5:02pm ticks by, almost unnoticed.

_He exhales slowly._

\--

“We’ve done this ...” he says, breathless, a question lingering in the air between them, much as his fingers linger on the hem of her shirt.

She closes her eyes, nods quickly, almost too quickly.

He kisses her again.

\--

She’s an enigma to him now, and sometimes to herself as well. The less he knows her, the more he seems to savor this, basking in it. She is a puzzle box, and nothing intrigues him more than that. She revels in it.

He asks her questions often now, and she always cheekily demurs, a flirtatious smile gracing her lips. This drives him mad, which is precisely why she does it.

Slowly, veiled old ( _new?_ ) memories begin occurring to her that, mingled with his still-occasional froid, he doesn’t think she’s half bad, herself.

\--

“Time can be rewritten,” he tells her, somberly. Almost desperately. She sees her entire existence reflected in his words: strands of time intertwined together, having summarily been unraveled by that very phrase, then twisting back to this moment. It’s the end for one of them and the beginning for the other, endlessly tangled into one.

Meeting in the wrong order, _indeed_.

“Not those times. Not one line. Don’t you dare!”

She can see it in his eyes, he _cares_. Will care.

More than ever before, she still knows she’d do _anything_ for him.

\--

_She nuzzles against his shoulder as they lie on the Darillium grass. It tickles her face, and this moment is marvelous._

He looks at her, almost presciently, content at her contentedness, and smiles back when she smiles warmly at him.

Softly, he asks her when she needs to go, his eyes tracing every contour of her face. He strokes her hand as if he never wants that to happen.

She looks up at him fondly and smiles to herself: sometimes, he strikes her as being so very young.

She grins again and slowly leans in for a kiss.

“Spoilers …”

* * *

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.  
  
This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=45038>


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